


Teenage Kicks

by pantropia



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I blame the canon, Infidelity, Interspecies Sex, Morbid thoughts, Underage Sex, Undercover Work, discussion of sex work, really unpleasant ending no seriously what was I thinking, unexpected consequences, unfortunate assumptions about other species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 09:21:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9484742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pantropia/pseuds/pantropia
Summary: Cassian Andor has been fighting since he was six years old, and he doesn't know anyone close to his age. He never really had a childhood, so of course he doesn't know how to be a normal teenager or how to let himself be happy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was not the fic I set out to write. That was going to be a lovely fluffy piece in which Cassian got to be happy for a while. Cassian apparently had other ideas. I really didn't see the ending coming until I'd written it, either. I am so sorry. But sod it, I rarely finish anything, and it's finished, so you can suffer with me.

 

Cassian was fifteen when he lost his virginity to Thela, a Twi'lek girl he'd sort of accidentally acquired on a mission. He occasionally daydreamed about rescuing someone – who wouldn't, growing up listening to the Pathfinders bragging? – but she hadn't been a prisoner, or even stuck anywhere particularly unpleasant. She'd just found him somewhere he shouldn't have been, pegged him as a Rebel and announced she wanted to join up, if they needed non-combatants. Which they did. They _really_ did.

They needed people who wanted to fight, sure, but such people were relatively easy to find. The Empire had a way of leaving people blazing with anger in its wake. It wasn't so easy to find people who would do all the jobs necessary to keep a base running. For every starfighter pilot, they needed at least a dozen other people whose jobs weren't at all glamorous. People who could do _boring_ stuff without going nuts.

Thela seemed genuine, and he'd surreptitiously checked her for trackers and concealed weapons and found nothing, so he decided to take her with him. It was standard practice to send a separate team out to pick people up, especially with potential troops who, after all, wouldn't be much use if they _weren't_ capable of causing trouble. Cassian wasn't sure if she'd been seen with him, though, and if she had, it wasn't likely she'd survive long enough to be collected.

It was only when she started flirting with him in the shuttle that he decided she must be an Imp spy. The only girl he knew who was interested in him was Princess Leia, and she was just a kid. It was a silly childish crush that he assumed had come about because she was usually left in his care when Bail Organa visited them. Not really knowing what to do with a little girl, royalty or otherwise, he'd taught her how to use and maintain a blaster, how to pick simple locks and a few tricks for defending herself if she was unarmed.

But the idea that a beautiful young woman would be interested in him without his teaching her forbidden knowledge or saving her from danger – he'd seen how a lot of the female Rebels got after a close call and seen enough stupid romantic holos to understand that one, never mind the Pathfinders tales – was so utterly ridiculous that he figured it _had_ to mean she was a spy trying to get him to trust her.

But as he saw it, that just made it an even better idea to go along with it. It would make her trust _him_ , perhaps make her careless. A relationship with her would give him opportunities to observe her and to put temptation in her way. Plus, he wouldn't die a virgin, which he'd been inclined to think he probably would. He'd already survived more missions than most Alliance Intelligence agents did.

Even if the pilot who'd drunkenly told him that she'd do him as a birthday present as soon as he was legal had been serious – and she probably had been, pilots' behaviour was notorious – it didn't seem likely that they'd both live that long. The shelf life of pilots tended to be even shorter than that of spies, but at least their deaths tended to be quick, and witnessed.

Cassian expected to die in some grimy alley, or under Imperial interrogation, a 'missing presumed dead' marker placed on his file when he didn't return. There had been one on his file for a while the previous year, but only because he'd got caught up in a workers' revolt. He was nowhere near the fighting, but with the power systems down, he'd not been able to recharge his comm system and he'd had to walk for three weeks to reach the spaceport.

Still, here they were, in hyperspace. The ship could pretty much take care of itself for the next several hours. So they retreated to the tiny bunk, leaving a trail of clothing. She had a wonderful body, of course, nearly all Twi'lek females did, but she'd acted like _he_ was the exotic and desirable one, thrilled by the fact that he had hair on his body as well as his head. Kriffing her had felt even better than he'd imagined it would, and if she'd noticed his inexperience, she'd not commented on it.

He knew that she'd be kept under observation once they were on base, but also that private quarters didn't have surveillance on them. They were regularly searched and all communications were monitored, but they didn't spy on what people said and did in their quarters. He'd told her that they couldn't let anyone know about their relationship, at least not yet, but not _why._ She hadn't questioned it, and that made him all the more suspicious of her.

He had a lot of missions that took him away from the base over the next few months, but whenever he _was_ there, he ended up spending a lot of time in Thela's bed. He knew a lot of the older operatives sometimes seduced their targets, or if undercover for extended periods would form relationships with Imperial women to help them seem genuine, so being able to successfully fake interest in a woman he hated seemed like a good idea – and he had come to hate her.

He'd not caught her doing anything against the Rebellion, and _officially_ he had no idea what role she was performing in the little room near the med-bay, but he could guess. She _was_ Twi'lek after all, and while a lot of the females were slaves sold to pleasure-houses, a lot of the free ones _chose_ sex work. The species had a somewhat unique biology that meant they were invulnerable to the vast majority of sexually-transmitted infections and they couldn't be impregnated against their will, so they could make a lot of money without much risk to themselves.

Sure, they'd maybe get a beating now and again, if they didn't work in one of the classier establishments, and you'd hear about girls who worked the streets being murdered now and again, but even that was a lot safer than, say, being a cargo pilot, and they could make a _lot_ of money, if they were self-employed.

He'd overheard several men talking about how much better they felt after appointments with Thela, and he couldn't be _entirely_ surprised that the Alliance allowed it. Throughout history prostitutes had gravitated towards wherever there were soldiers, and it was presumably only the fact that the Alliance didn't exactly have a lot of spare cash that meant they hadn't got more like her already.

It wasn't that he was _jealous_ of those other men, because it wasn't like he was in love with her. It just made him angry to have her pretending to love _him,_ calling him 'my beautiful man', when all the time she was going with whoever wanted her. Alright, they'd not discussed the nature of their relationship, but she _acted_ as though it were exclusive. Whenever he got back from a mission she was all over him, telling him how much she'd missed him, how scared she'd been for him, how _lonely_ her bed had been without him in it.

She even pretended to be impressed when some of the ground troops had mentioned that he'd killed a Stormtrooper with his bare hands when he was twelve. Twi'lek society valued male warriors, true, but she'd always been rather disdainful of her own people. It didn't make any sense, not when she also made out that she _liked_ that he wasn't big and strong like most of the Pathfinders and praised how gentle he was with her.

It wasn't easy, faking being as in love as she was doing, and he had no idea if she were convinced or not, but she seemed to be. He'd never seen a real couple who never argued, though, so he wasn't too worried that calling her out on her contradictory opinions would blow his cover.

She'd explained that she was impressed by his skill, that he was able to best men so much bigger and stronger than he was. He pointed out that he wasn't proud of some of the things he'd done, but that they were _necessary._ She'd said that just proved that he was better than other men, because there was no honour in fighting for something as worthless as personal prestige. Which, he had to admit, seemed to be what Twi'lek men did.

It seemed pretty obvious that she was just telling him whatever she thought he wanted to hear, though. Surely if she were being honest, she'd have got upset, told him women's feelings didn't have to make sense or something – he'd heard that in arguments before – and he couldn't help thinking it was all too good to be true.

She'd never really complained about anything he did or said, either. From what he'd seen, women in _real_ relationships were always finding fault with their men. It made him even more certain that she was just waiting for the right opportunity to betray them all, that she was deep undercover. It wasn't like the Alliance didn't have people placed within the Empire.

If only someone _could_ really love him the way she seemed to, he would have been deliriously happy. He knew he wasn't worthy of it, though, certainly not from someone as beautiful as she was. Maybe when he was a little older, he really would rescue someone, have her love him for however long it took her to come to her senses. That would do. He didn't much like the idea of someone being upset for long when he inevitably got himself killed.

Just before he turned sixteen, he volunteered for a mission that would have him away for at least three months, probably more like six, maybe as long as a year. Assuming he made it back at all, which was far from a given. He didn't tell Thela how long he'd be away, just that it would be a lot longer than he'd been away from her so far.

She hadn't really complained before, but while he'd been away a lot, it had been in short bursts, never more than two weeks. This time, she cried, begged him not to go, told him she was afraid he wouldn't come back at all because if it was longer it _must_ be more dangerous, and damn her, he very nearly believed her. But even if he had, it wouldn't have stopped him going. It was _important_ and he was very good at what he did.

He hadn't expected any fuss to be made about his birthday, even though on Fest, sixteen had been something of a significant age – not quite adult, but old enough for things like getting a speeder license and being allowed to buy certain mild intoxicants – but the little Princess had been visiting and insisted on throwing a party, saying that he _deserved_ it because she was going to make him a Prince when she was old enough. Maybe, if he was still around then, he'd remind her of that, and they'd be able to laugh together about how silly she'd been when she was little.

He wasn't really interested in having a party, but he hated to disappoint the kid, so he'd gone. As had what seemed like everyone who was off-duty at the time, Thela included. He was sat playing a card game and hiding from the sort of people who wanted to make him get up and dance when Thela appeared with a plate full of Alderaanian nibbles and tapped one of the Corellian pilots who'd been watching the game on the shoulder.

“You need an appointment with me before you fly again,” she told him. “You're carrying way too much tension in your shoulders.”

Cassian was in the corner of the booth, mostly hidden by a wookie he'd always got on fairly well with, so it seemed likely that she'd not spotted him. She'd never mentioned anything about appointments within his hearing before.

“Can't,” the pilot said, gesturing to the cup of caf in front of him. “Flying out in three hours.”

“Oh, well, I can do you right here if you want,” Thela suggested with a shrug and a twitch of her lekku.

The pilot looked round, said, “Yeah, alright then,” unfastened his jumpsuit and leaned forward as he wriggled out of the top of it, revealing an extremely hairy chest. Cassian couldn't believe it. Sure, pilots had a reputation, but this was ridiculous. They might be in a booth, but there _were_ kids on the other side of the room, and even if there hadn't been, this would still be out of line.

_Maybe_ when it was past midnight, the kids and senior officers had all gone to bed and everyone was drunk. But only _maybe._ He couldn't get away, though, wedged into the corner as he was, and he didn't think he could object without making it obvious something had been going on, or worse, sounding like an innocent kid. So he sank lower in the seat and focused all his attention on his cards. Thank the Force they weren't playing for money.

He might not be able to see past the wookie now the pilot had leaned back again, but the noises the man was making were thoroughly indecent. He couldn't see Thela any more, either, so he concluded that she must have slipped under the table to suck the pilot off. She could _probably_ do that without too much danger of being seen. Suddenly there was a loud crack and the pilot spat out an extremely inventive string of profanity. Cassian couldn't help looking up, and a couple of the other players were looking at each other in mild alarm as well.

“Just a little more, sweetie, you can take it,” Thela said, her tone soothing but her voice betraying that she was putting some effort into something. A series of quieter cracking noises followed and Thela huffed out a breath. “There, how's that?”

The pilot groaned, and his bare arms came into view briefly as he stretched in various directions. “Wow. Yeah, that _is_ a lot better, Doc, thanks.”

“Good, don't leave it so long next time,” Thela admonished as she walked round the table, the pilots shuffling up to make room for her. “And wear your thermal undersuit, you idiot, this isn't a particularly warm world and like it or not, you're not getting any younger.”

“Will do, ma'am.”

Understanding dawned for Cassian at last. She wasn't a prostitute, she was a _chiropractor._ That both changed things and didn't. Thinking she was kriffing other men had only been _one_ of the things that made him angry, he had plenty of other reasons.

“Hey, Thela,” he said quietly, shuffling in the seat to get out of the way of the wookie's arm. Jostling a wookie while she was gambling – even one who liked you – wasn't likely to end well.

“Awww, baby spy got a cwush?” one of the pilots cooed.

_The cub outranks you, you bantha's ball-sack,_ the wookie roared, her tone amused but with a hint of warning to it. _And you couldn't fight a soggy tooka without your precious bean tin._

“Oh, hey Cassian, didn't see you there,” Thela said, ignoring both of them, though Cassian was pretty sure she didn't understand shyriiwook anyway. She'd insisted on learning a little of his home-language and teaching him a little of hers, though. She asked how he was in his language, he told her he was fine in hers, or at least, as close to it as you could get without lekku. Languages were always useful for an Intelligence agent. Another mark against her, so far as he was concerned.

“What's with the banner?” she asked, gesturing to a large piece of cloth that had been hung up saying 'Happy Sixteenth Birthday' in aurebesh. “They only got one?”

“Nope,” the pilot who'd called him 'baby spy' grinned, before Cassian could respond. “Oor kid's sixteen today.”

“Oh, I get it,” she said, nodding. “Long year on your homeworld?”

“Sixteen _standard,_ ” the pilot said.

Thela frowned. “But he's a lieutenant. He goes on dangerous missions, flies himself, he can't...”

“Yeah, well, it's not like spying and killing bucketheads is legal, is it? Violating a few age restrictions is pretty minor compared to that.”

“Right...” Thela said, her lekku twitching furiously. “That's... surprising. I mean, it's not like I'm an expert on guessing the ages of aliens, but... I guess I thought the Rebellion was above using child soldiers.”

Cassian shrugged. “Better I be here than with a group like the Partisans. I'd be fighting the Empire whatever, at least here I've got a proper support structure behind me. Nobody's _making_ me do anything.”

“Maybe not, but...” she shook her head and stood. “There's things you could be doing that aren't...”

“I'm making the most of my skillset,” he shrugged. “And I get underestimated and overlooked a lot because I'm so young. That's been really useful.”

“Yes, well, don't rely on it,” she snapped and left. He knew he should go after her – it's what he'd do if this were real – but he didn't have a good excuse for leaving the game. The pilots weren't stupid, if he ran after her, they'd _know._ So he lost as quickly as he could, then claimed to need the fresher.

He knew she was in her room but she didn't answer the chime and there were too many people around for him to just stay there and keep trying, so he wandered off to a quieter corridor and commed her. She didn't answer that, either. He left her a short message explaining that he was going back to the party – Leia would notice if he was gone too long if nobody else would – and to comm him when she was ready to talk.

She didn't call him, or let him into her room any time over the next three days and he didn't see her in the mess either. On the fourth day, he was about to use his security clearance to find out where she was so he could intercept her before he left when he suddenly found himself wondering why. It didn't take him long to work it out. It had stopped being impossibly perfect, now she was angry – or more likely pretending to be – and avoiding him, and that made it seem _real_. He _wanted_ it to be real.

Annoyed with himself for being such an idiot, he stormed off to make absolutely sure he had everything he'd need and after saying goodbye to Leia and thanking her for the party, he shipped out. He came back five months later having spent four of them sending regular coded transmissions to the Alliance.

Getting to the information they wanted had been a lot easier than he'd expected thanks to the Imperial General's daughter, who he'd met by chance in the local market. With very little effort on Cassian's part, she'd given him a lot of access codes so that he could sneak in to her quarters without her mother's knowledge. She'd had some spectacularly objectionable opinions about non-humans and a tendency to order Cassian about, but she'd also been very taken with the idea of illicit liaisons with the sort of scruffy low-life her mother would hate.

The look on her face when she'd finally realized that he was an Alliance spy was _priceless._ She'd threatened often to claim he was a burglar she'd caught if he didn't do what she wanted and used the idea of being handed over to her mother to keep him in line. Or thought she had, anyway.

“By all means call the troopers, Chel,” he'd said with a grin as he pocketed a data card full of information about mission plans and troop movements. “I'm sure your mother will interrogate me very skilfully... how much detail should I go into about what we've been doing all this time, do you think? Which of us do you think she'll believe when I tell her you planted this on me because I told you it's over between us? And even if she does believe you... how well do you think she'll react to knowing you gave me _all_ your access codes?”

He'd left in a hurry, because he couldn't be certain that her sense of self-preservation would hold out against her anger, but it had done so long enough for him to get off-world at least. There was very little more he could have done if he'd stayed longer anyway. What was done with the information he gathered wasn't something he was likely to be privy to, but he suspected that the mission the General was about to lead would be ambushed and the local resistance movement given enough information to take back their world.

He'd thought about Thela a lot, while he was there, but not because he cared for her. Of course not. He'd not realized that hatred wouldn't actually be the biggest stumbling block to his sexual performance. While Chel wasn't _ugly,_ he didn't find her at all attractive, she just wasn't his type, somehow. She had no real interest in Cassian's pleasure either, and it showed. So he _had_ to think about Thela. He hardly ever came with Chel, but either she didn't care or she didn't notice.

He didn't feel at all guilty about using her. Why should he? She'd been using him as well. But, on his way back to base, he found himself looking forward to seeing Thela again. He knew there was a possibility that she would have taken the opportunity of his absence to make her move, whatever that might be, and thinking she was trusted been caught, so he tried not to get his hopes up too much. Even if she hadn't done anything yet, it wasn't likely she'd have been able to get any information about how his mission was going, so she might well have concluded he was dead and moved on.

Even so, he _hoped_ Thela would still be available to him, because _stars_ he wanted her. Months of disappointing sex had probably been harder to stomach than none at all, and one of her welcomes would be just what he needed after the debrief and finding out what had been going on while he'd been away.

One of the first things he found out in the mess was that the pilot who'd promised to kriff him when he turned seventeen had been taken out by pirates on what should have been a milk-run about a week after he'd left. The second was that his wookie friend had trodden on a mine on some backwater planet and was having a hard time trying to get used to an artificial leg. She was so grumpy because of it that she'd retreated to a hut somewhere out in the woods until she could reliably control her temper enough to not accidentally kill anyone.

He stayed in the mess for four hours, from just before the normal lunch period to well after it, but there was no sign of Thela. He couldn't quite bring himself to ask about her and nobody had volunteered anything. He didn't much fancy going to her quarters and having some man answer the door, but he figured she'd hear he was back soon enough and come to him, if she wasn't with someone else.

With nothing else to do, he decided to get the indignity of the post-mission medical exam out of the way. He hadn't expected to see Thela in the med-bay. She was about as far from the area where he'd been told to wait as it was possible to be and remain visible, on the other side of a transparisteel partition. That implied a disease rather than an injury.

“What's wrong with Thela?” he asked when the medic called his name.

“Oh, nothing _wrong_ as such, it just hits some women harder than others,” he said, as though that should explain everything. Thela was still there when his medical was finished, so he asked if she was allowed visitors and was told to go on in.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she snapped, turned onto her side and threw up into a bowl that had been left beside her. She wiped her mouth and looked over her shoulder at him. “Go away.”

“Glad to see you were as worried about me as you said you'd be,” he grumbled.

“Worried? Why should I _worry_ about such a deceitful piece of trash as you?”

_Kriff_ , he thought. _Of course she found out._ He'd had to explain how he'd been getting so much good intel so reliably. His commander was far from pleased, but it hadn't gained him an official reprimand.

“I'm sorry, Thela, really I am. I never meant to hurt you, it was for the mission.”

“For the mission,” she repeated coldly, rolling to face him.

“Of course. It's not like I _enjoyed_ it.”

“That's supposed to make me feel _better_ is it?”

“I'm sorry, alright? I only got through it by thinking of you.”

For a couple of seconds, Thela said nothing, her lekku swishing like the tails of a pair of angry tookas, and then she extended the similarity by pouncing on him, going for the throat.

“On top of everything you _cheated_ on me?” she hissed into his face and then suddenly, she was several feet away, struggling in the grip of a med-droid.

“Really, ma'am,” it admonished tonelessly, “You should not be exerting yourself so in your condition.”

“ _Stang!”_ Cassian gasped as he saw Thela full-length for the first time since he'd got back. The med-bay provided gown didn't hide much and a _lot_ of things fell into place. She hadn't been angry with him about Chel, she hadn't _known_. She'd been angry with him for being younger than she'd assumed. Too young to be in a serious relationship, one that, if he'd thought, he would have realized she could get into serious trouble for.

And she'd probably been more angry about _that_ than she might have been because she knew she wouldn't be able to conceal, for long, that she'd been having a relationship with _someone._ A traitorous part of his mind whispered _It's probably not even yours,_ but he knew that wasn't true. And he knew, suddenly, that _it had all been real_.

She loved him... or she _had_ before she knew he was underage, and before she knew he'd kriffed an Imp for information. He'd behaved abominably, because he was an idiot. He could have been _happy_ , but no, he'd ruined it. His mistrustful nature, his deception, his betrayal.

“If you don't calm down, ma'am, I shall be forced to sedate you,” the droid said.

“Let her punch me,” Cassian said to the droid. “That should calm her a little. This is my fault.”

Thela deflated. “I don't want to punch you. Let me get... I'm calm now. I want to get back into bed.”

“Very well, ma'am,” the droid said, and carefully put her down. She got into the bed, and the droid trundled off.

“I thought....” Cassian gestured to her abdomen. “Well, I thought that wasn't possible.”

“It's less likely, with a human, but not impossible. I _told_ you I loved you.”

“Is that relevant?”

“Relevant?” She stared at him aghast, then ran her hand over her face. “Kriffing hell. Let me guess, it isn't for humans. What determines if a human female is fertile?”

“Age and whether she's had permission to stop her contraceptive shots, mostly,” he said, and Thela began to both laugh and cry at the same time.

“You thought it wasn't possible, because we're different species and because even if we weren't, I'd be on a mandatory drug to stop this happening.”

“Yes.”

“The same for your little Imp whore, I suppose?”

“I have no idea, but I wouldn't have done it without a sheath. Might have caught something.”

She chuckle-sobs again at that, and Cassian stares at his hands. “I honestly didn't enjoy it. She was a horrible person, she wasn't nice to me, she was a lousy lay, and she wasn't even particularly pretty.”

“The order says a lot about you, you know. Principles, friendship, pleasure, appearances. I knew that, but I was wrong about what your principles _are._ I'm not entirely sure you know. So tell me, was I just a practice run, or did it actually mean anything to you?”

“I wouldn't have tried it if we hadn't... I mean if I hadn't... but I didn't do it because of... I mean... I wasn't expecting...” It said a lot about Basic that it stood up to the removal of so many verbs, Thela thought. “Maybe it's worse. It's... it was all too perfect. So I didn't believe it.”

“Believe _what_?”

“You. That you might... I thought you were doing to me what I did to _her_. That you were a sleeper agent. And I hated you for... well, for _pretending_ to give me something so wonderful. I mean, I know _now_ you weren't trying to play me, but...”

“Force help me, I understand,” she sighed. “Look, Cassian... I'm clearly an idiot, because I do still love you, despite everything, but I can't be with you. It's not just because you're too young, it's because... well, because you're... this. Because the man I love is one you made up, not who you really are. I don't want our kid turning out like you. No offense, but... I didn't think the Rebellion would be like this. I didn't think they'd let _children_ fight. And I won't have them twisting _my_ child's mind until she thinks that's acceptable.”

Cassian nodded, but didn't look up. “I'll stay until she's born,” Thela continued gently. “You should at least meet her... but after that... I have options. There's friends I can go to. I'll send you holos, and... you're always welcome to visit but...I won't let you be alone with her. Just in case.”

“That's fair,” he said.

“And just... keep out of my way for a while, will you? I don't need the stress.” Thela only let him feel the baby kick because he happened to be in the mess when she was and she was letting _everyone_ feel. Pregnancies were rare and magical, here, and, thankfully, everyone was quite happy to leave the subject of the baby's father alone.

Everyone but his commanding officer, that is, but she was mostly interested in whether he was likely to leave when Thela did. Not that his commander was entirely unsympathetic. He was offered counselling – for the business with Chel as much as for his relationship with Thela – and he'd been warned off doing anything like that for a mission again unless it really seemed like there was no other option and it was impossible to get an older operative there before it was too late.

They knew better than to relieve him of duty, but the missions he was sent on were some of the safest he'd ever done. He didn't complain. Perhaps if Thela had given him a reason to think their relationship could be salvaged, if she'd not been so emphatic about not wanting him to have any influence over their child, he might have considered leaving, but... this was where he belonged. Where he was useful. He would just have been a burden to the pair of them.

He hadn't really got an education, or not one he could prove, anyway, so getting any sort of job anywhere reputable would have been just about impossible. Besides, there was a good chance that the moment anyone realized that he was the child's father, Thela would end up on the wrong side of the law. Even if she didn't, being in an inter-species relationship was likely to make things awkward for her, and she'd have enough problems just being a non-human unmarried mother.

A little over two months later, he was taken straight from a mission debrief to a private room in the med-bay so he could meet his daughter. She was pale mauve with a dusting of brownish-purple hair on top of her head, chubby limbed and with an annoyed-looking wrinkled face. She was possibly the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. As he picked her up, she became increasingly blurry, but he'd have to put her down to be able to wipe his eyes, and he _couldn't_ do that.

“She doesn't have any lekku,” he murmured, and Chela chuckled.

“She's just a baby,” she said. “They'll come when she's older. Or not, I don't know. She's healthy, though, that's what matters.”

“It's safe, where you're taking her?”

“As much as anywhere is. I wasn't intending to get too rooted, just in case it looks like it would be a good idea to move on. It's different, for non-humans, even on the more cosmopolitan worlds.”

“Have you decided on her name?”

“Fyonna,” she said. “Not quite human, not quite Twi'lek, but close enough that it shouldn't seem that unusual to either.”

“Hello, Fyonna,” he said quietly. “I can't go with you, but please don't ever think I wouldn't rather be where you are. I wish I could be a proper papa for you, but I can't. I'm needed here. People like me fight so that things will change for the better. So that people like you _won't_ have to. So you'll be safe. That's more important to me than anything.”

“I do understand that,” Thela said, taking the infant out of Cassian's arms. “I can see what's made you the way you are. I just wish you could have been honest with me.”

It wasn't always possible to keep in touch, and he never did manage to visit, but he sent messages and presents, when he could, even managed a few actual holo-calls. Fyonna had seemed mildly confused about who he was, the first time, and at a loss for anything to say after that, but it was wonderful to see her. She had started to develop lekku, but they were small, still, and mostly hidden by her hair. Images weren’t enough, though. He wanted more. He wanted to be a _father_ to her. He wanted the word papa to _mean_ something to her, something good.

He kriffed a few pilots over the years, usually one-time deals when they were both drunk, but he'd never got into another relationship, for a mission or otherwise. He didn't remind Leia about the crush she'd had on him either, because by the time she was seventeen, she was no longer someone he felt comfortable enough with to tease. She'd grown into her royalty, would clearly be succeeding her father as Senator soon.

Every time he saw a child, or a twi'lek, he wanted to be near Fyonna, any way he could. The more time went by, the more it consumed him, to the point it was starting to be a problem on missions. So he went to Draven to explain.

“I'll do this one last mission,” he said in a tone that indicated he wasn't to be swayed. “And then I go. I have a ten-year-old daughter I've only seen holos of since she was a week old. I've spoken to her mother, and she thinks she can get me a job. I've given you twenty years of my life, it's time I gave some of it to my daughter.”

“Well... let's consider it an indefinite leave of absence,” Draven said. He'd known this was coming, had discussed it with Mon Mothma. Andor would still only be in his early thirties when his daughter was a grown woman, they had plenty of fresh recruits older than that, and he couldn't imagine that the man could ever really settle into civilian life. “You'll be welcome back with us any time.”

“With luck, you won’t need me by then. I'd appreciate it if you'd report Cassian Andor as killed in action, though. I have a fresh identity prepared, and I'll be returning here under that name.”

“Very well, Captain,” Draven said, shaking his hand. “Good luck. I have to ship out myself in a few days, so in case I don't see you again, I'll say it now. It's been good working with you. Enjoy your time on Alderaan, you've earned it.”

 

 


End file.
